The Complex Trauma Treatment Network (CTTN) is a Category II National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) Center established in 2009 to develop, adapt and disseminate evidence-based practices for children and adolescents impacted by complex trauma. The CTTN provides intensive training and technical assistance to transform systems of care. Since its inception, the CTTN has served 25 Learning Communities (LCs) comprised of identified state and multi-county child service care across 7 geographic regions. In this time our faculty have provided over 4500 hours of training to almost 60,000 multidisciplinary providers: mental health, education, child welfare, law enforcement, juvenile justice, legislators, judges, clergy, DV/IPV and sexual assault advocates, health care and public health, as well as consumers across 45 U.S. states and territories. This initiative directly impacts over 100,000 children and families nationwide.

Complex Trauma Treatment Network (Cycle 3: 2016-2021)

The central purpose of the CTTN is to expand access to trauma-informed services for children and families impacted by complex trauma in three service settings impacted by complex trauma: residential treatment settings, homeless shelters, and juvenile justice detention centers. CTTN project goals include: (1) To enhance capacity building and establish complex trauma-informed infrastructure across high-need systems of care in regions of the United States that continue to be underserved and under-resourced, including U.S. Pacific Island Territories (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam); (2) To increase national dissemination of EBPs for complex trauma (Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC), Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS), and Think Trauma Toolkit) in residential treatment centers, juvenile justice detention centers, and homeless shelters serving high-risk children/families impacted by complex trauma; (3) To achieve regional sustainability of complex trauma EBPs across intra- and inter-agency residential treatment centers, juvenile justice detention centers, and homeless shelters treating complex trauma.

(i) Learning Communities that emphasize regional capacity building and complex trauma-informed systems enhancement across large care continua in underserved and under-resourced areas of the country. LCs participate in a needs and readiness assessment, followed by foundational and ongoing staff training and consultation around complex trauma.

(ii) Learning Collaboratives that involve intensive, multi-phase complex trauma EBP dissemination and adoption. Each LC participates in a needs and readiness assessment, followed by foundational and ongoing staff training and consultation around EBP implementation, model adoption, and cultural adaptations. The also participate in train the trainer initiatives aimed at system-level integration, and outcome evaluation & fidelity monitoring.

(iii) Advanced complex trauma-EBP Consortia aimed at regional sustainability. These consortia will establish consortium-specific infrastructures, procedures and collaborative inter-agency “cultures” conducive to complex trauma EBP resource and knowledge sharing (e.g., lessons learned and strategies to overcome obstacles to effective CT implementation), as well as mentor and equip consortium member agencies/leaders with the requisite EBP trainer-training, tools and certifications necessary to support sustainability of complex trauma EBPs at the inter-agency level.

The CTTN operates through a highly efficient network with the NCTSN network design comprised of a National Coordinating Center Suffolk University, the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, Adelphi University, Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, the University of Chicago, and Anchorage Community Mental Health Services. All CTTN sites are active or affiliate NCTSN TSA or CTS centers. CTTN faculty are clinical research and intervention development pioneers in the recognition and treatment of complex trauma, including Drs. Spinazzola (PhD) and van der Kolk of the Trauma Center at JRI. Senior CTTN Faculty members include the following leading scholars, treatment model developers, clinical researchers and senior trainers, practitioners and clinical supervisors in the field of complex trauma stress: